


All Quiet Things

by TruckThat



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M, Prompt Fill, Soft Kylux, rated M for Mostly nude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 06:32:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17523620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TruckThat/pseuds/TruckThat
Summary: Ren is back now. By dint of careful delegation, Hux can spare enough time to see him as squared away as he keeps the rest of his belongings.





	All Quiet Things

**Author's Note:**

> Still sloooowly backing up things I've only posted to my Tumblr. This was first posted in 2017. The original author's note went a little something like this:
>
>> For the @kyluxsoftkinks prompt: 'Submitted by @givemesometeaandbiscuits : For the kylux soft kink, maybe they’re tired, Kylo is back from one hell of a mission and the last time Hux was asleep was like 40 hours ago, and they just undress each other slowly, piece by piece. It’s not even sexual, it’s just been able to get to know each other again. And then they’re naked in front of each other, just breathing each other in… What do you think?'
>> 
>> God Have Mercy I wrote this on the goddamn train in three days’ worth of commutes and it is two thousand and seven hundred fucking words of nothing but taking off clothes. So if it reads like something someone wrote on a train while contemplating the abyss… yes, you’re right.

“ _Wait._ ”

Ren freezes, clearly not expecting to be barked at. Not that it matters. Ren is _not_ coming into his bed like that; Hux won’t have it. There’s blood and gods even know what else caked in the fabric. It’s unsanitary, even if it wasn’t… unsavory. Although ‘unsavory’ would probably describe Ren whatever his condition was. But he looks so bloody awkward just _hulking_ there like that, arrested mid-step, it makes Hux want to take pity.

“No, just. Come on, you can't—” He sighs. When he blinks his eyes feel… gritty. If he’s honest, he feels a bit like there’s grit jammed into all of him, like he’s a droid that’s been left out in the sandstorm. There’s been work enough for three of him, just lately. And he’s been. Well. He blinks again, heavily. Well, it hardly matters; Ren is back now, if rather bloodier around the edges than is usual even for him. By dint of careful delegation, Hux can spare enough time to see Ren as squared away as he keeps the rest of his belongings.

He does rather think of Ren as such—a belonging, and one he has _earned_ —which is the primary reason, no doubt, that Hux is more relieved than he thought he’d be to have the great lummox returned intact.

Ren still stands uncertainly at the edge of Hux’s bunk, awaiting instruction: like a ship unsure of its docking protocols, poor lout. Hux allows himself one last huff of exasperation.

“Just—come here then,” he says, but he goes to Ren himself. It’s only a few steps, and he turns him by his great static shoulders to face Hux properly. He has a particularly miserable hunch about him that Hux hasn’t seen in a long time. Long enough that he’d begun to think it was gone. He clicks his tongue, more exasperated rather than less. One more thing in a _very_ long list of things today that are Hux’s problem to be solved.

Ren lets himself be turned, lets Hux unclasp the outer cowl he is still, ridiculously, wearing—like a child, so exhausted he’s ready to trundle into bed in his snowsuit, _honestly_. He stands uncharacteristically biddable while Hux smooths the crew collar of the shirt he wears underneath; blinks dumbly as he lets Hux indulge himself and fuss a bit. Hux spreads his fingers out against Ren’s collarbone, through the knit of the fabric. It’s been long enough since they’ve touched, surely, to justify Hux taking a moment just to enjoy the sheer broadness of him. The way he radiates heat like an engine bank through all his idiot layers. But then: “Hux…” Ren rumbles, a dangerous edge of rebellion bleeding through. He shifts, restless, and their knees bump together.

“Hush,” Hux says quellingly, dusting at some undustable (and unspeakable) piece of crust turning the dark fabric darker. “Let me sort you.”

Ren snorts and knocks against him a little harder, probably on purpose this time. “Sort _me_?” he parrots. Perhaps that’s an undercurrent of amusement, rather than upset.

Hux appreciates being laughed at even less than he appreciates some bloody… _warlock—_ literally _bloody_ , mind you—disturbing the careful neatness of his quarters. He supposes some or all of this must show on his face. Or maybe Ren can just smell it on him like a damn tracking strill. Either way, he catches Hux’s eyes directly and one corner of Ren’s mouth quirks up with what unmistakably _is_ his sepulcherous idea of a joke.

“Come here yourself, General,” Ren says, slow, Hux’s rank teasingly soft in his awful, soft mouth. “Look at you,” he runs on, reaching out with his huge hands to mirror the way that Hux is still bracing him. And he _is_ looking, a hot, liquid look that Hux can feel right down to his insides, half horrible and half exactly what he’s been parching for for weeks. “You’re asleep on your feet. And I can feel you thinking you’ll put me down for a nap and, what, go back to work? ”

Hux scoffs. He _is_ the general. The commander of this vessel, and of the First Order fleet, and as such is tasked with overseeing its operations.

“Mm-hmm,” Ren murmurs, quiet in the very little space that remains between them, insultingly gentle. His long fingers are spidering the top button of Hux’s collar open. He leans into his task, not even watching Hux’s reaction, as if Hux is some mannequin to be manhandled and undressed as he likes. “And it will still be your fleet to command in the morning. When you are actually on shift.”

“My remarks were not addressed to you, Ren,” Hux says to the top of his bent head. “Nor, I might add, were they addressed _out loud_.”

“No,” Ren agrees, peaceably enough. He’s on the second button, with one rough thumb sneaking slivers of skin at Hux’s throat, and he’s always so damnably warm to the touch. “But you always complain that I never listen.”

“I don’t mean inside my _head_. As you very well know.” Hux tries to sound as exasperated as he wishes he felt about being handled in this manner. There’s no hint of intent in Ren except to get him unbuttoned. Even so he allows himself the indulgence of running both palms down Ren’s flanks. There’s much to be said, from both a tactile and an aesthetic perspective, about how very _solid_ Ren is. But more than that, today, he is _present_. Whole and still under Hux’s hands, where he hasn’t been in… weeks. Three and a half standard weeks; a week and a half longer than the preliminary recon had led Hux to estimate in the original briefing.

He catches at the hem of Ren’s shirt and Ren makes a little inquiring hum up at him. Glances up from where he’s leaned in very close and intent to puzzle his way all the way down Hux’s uniform shirtfront while Hux has been woolgathering. The half-light of Hux’s quarters makes Ren’s eyes look slick black. Fathomless like the space between starfields.

They’re quite an ordinary, stupid shade of brown under normal lighting, Hux knows.

He reverses the motion and starts to work Ren’s shirt up and off of him, very aware that his thoughts are running towards the grossly maudlin.

“Sweet, you mean,” Ren rumbles at him, practically a purr. He goes along with Hux’s handling, cooperatively again, with amusement all over him like an oilslick. “Maudlin isn’t it at all. You’re… glad to see me, I think.”

Hux yanks the fabric over Ren’s head as roughly as he’s able, careful to snag on his nose and muss his ridiculous hair as much as possible. When his face pops back into view, though, Ren still has that damnable half a grin and he _is_ in Hux’s head, in his room and his space and about one good shove from his _bed_ —so he’s right, of course. He lets Ren’s shirt fall to the floor where it may and cards his hands through his hair a little until he can just about manage to look at Ren straight-faced again. He leaves his fingers tangled at the nape of Ren’s neck, rests his forearms on Ren’s shoulders. “There,” Hux says, as if the preceding nonsensical conversation hasn’t happened. “Sorted.”

Ren barks a single soft laugh. “Competently done, General. The First Order salutes you.” Stars, he looks as worn-through as Hux feels.

Hux briefly considers biting his own tongue off rather than inadvertently smiling _back_.

He considers the job he has yet to complete, instead: more than a belt, Ren has all kinds of complicated… fasteners. Less of them today than sometimes; he’s just come from some horrible jungle-y part of the Meris system and is wearing almost as few layers as Hux has ever seen on him. It doesn’t make a difference, really. Hux could have (and has) undone them all in the dark. He knows his work.

Ren is the same with him: methodical, easy, sure. Shirt pushed back off his shoulders under Ren’s slow hands, and then a practiced bit of ballet where Hux loses first the sleeves and then his undershirt and Ren is down by several straps and odd suspenders to nothing but his trousers and his soft boots. They could have done it blindfolded, could have done it with only one free hand between them, and they do it now very close and very silent, in no rush.

Ren stops at Hux’s waistband and stays there, plucks at his belt loop and raises both eyebrows—an unvoiced question. A silly question, although Hux is almost willing to admit that he’s tired enough, tonight, that there are some promises he perhaps shouldn’t make. Still. Hux huffs at him and finds the fastener of Ren’s pants, if Ren won’t do it for him. Ren’s skin just there, newly exposed, is very soft and thrillingly pallid; it’s possible that Hux allows himself to touch a little more than is necessary, just to feel the tiny shiver that Ren doesn’t bother to suppress at the way Hux’s knuckles brush.

“Hux,” Ren says, even lower than before. He bends abruptly to shove his own boots off and kick out of the trousers that now aren’t much more than in the way. Then he just drops to his knees and stays there. Rests his ungainly chin more or less at Hux’s navel so he can crane his head back and look up at him, huge warm hands back at his beltline. He gentles one giant palm up and over Hux’s side, his hip, and back down.

Hux lets himself stroke Ren’s hair back out of his eyes. There’s no question in Ren now and no stupid levity. He just blinks up at Hux slow and a little crinkled—a smile, maybe, that doesn’t quite show. Maybe just sleepiness.

The strangest thing is that Hux remembers hating this man hard enough to strike sparks whenever they bashed together. And he doesn’t remember changing his mind, but here they both are with Ren naked and warm, knelt at Hux’s feet.

Hux would get down there with him but, honestly, the exhaustion of weeks of overwork is in his bones and he thinks he might creak if he tried to bend at the knees. He cups the back of Ren’s neck instead and coaxes him back up to his level. Ren stands, untroubled, in a long ripple of muscle that is, all of it, Hux’s to touch if he wants. He thinks about leaning in and up enough to kiss; it seems like the expected thing, shirtless in the dimness with Ren wearing not a stitch. Ren leans their foreheads together instead and glances down between them to finally deal with Hux’s belt buckle. It always makes Hux a little preemptively breathless anyway, those inkstain eyelashes and that wet mouth in such close proximity— never mind that he’s not quite sure whether Ren intends to take him properly to bed or whether they are merely slowly, elaborately, ruinously tucking each other in to sleep. Actually either option is somewhat ruinous when Hux considers that he is pressed in to Kylo Ren, tracing little questioning, questing circles down from the place where the back of his neck turns into his broad, familiar shoulders turns into the huge slope of his back. And that he really doesn’t mind either way.

Ren must snag some part of Hux’s ridiculous sentimentality out of the ether because his eyes flick back up to Hux’s face, sharp and a little wicked.

He gets one whole hand down the front of Hux’s undone trousers, calloused where Hux is unspeakably bare, and watches from incredibly close, too close, while he fondles where Hux— _isn’t_ hard, actually, but isn’t opposed to getting that way either.

“ _Ren_ ,” Hux half laughs, half embarrassingly squawks, when Ren reverses grip to tug a bit, gently but _definitely rudely_. He can feel how Ren laughs against his cheek, just barely breath and no sound at all.

“Just… checking,” Ren says, _unbelievably,_ and then he really is kissing Hux, properly kissing him, his other hand spreading out slow on Hux’s front where Hux knows his heartbeat must be trying its lazy best to kick up faster. Hux opens up to him just as lazily and just as completely, lets Ren’s tongue in and lets himself wrap around Ren all the way with their hips as flush together as he can make them with Ren’s hands in between. A tiny groan bleeds its way out of him at the pressure, at Ren’s _fingers_ ; Ren mumbles something useless that sounds like appreciation for a good idea passably executed. But just as Hux is deciding that perhaps he does, after all, prefer this over sleep, Ren pulls back from his mouth. Slides sideways, unhurried and thrillingly _thorough_ , along Hux’s jaw.

“Take your boots off, Hux,” he says, all low gravel against Hux’s ear.

Satisfied by Ren’s ragged tone that he has at least been somewhat affected by his own terrible manners, Hux steps away to sit on the edge of his bunk and do as he’s bid. He’s briefly proud that his knees don’t even wobble, until he realizes that Ren is coming _with_ him. That Ren is—he’s going down on one knee again to take Hux’s boots off himself, making the whole order rather a moot point. He is careful but sure here too, with the benefit of practice. It looks—it must look, to an outside observer—like supplication. A warrior bent in _service_.

Hux wonders which one of them this is intended to serve, this time around. Ren watches him with predator’s eyes and doesn’t hurry. He works the boots down Hux’s calves—not an insignificant feat; removing uniform boots takes patience and no small amount of technique—and then takes equal care in getting his trousers and pants down his thighs. Hux shifts as necessary but doesn’t help and isn’t needed.

This final task accomplished, Ren sits back on his haunches and looks up at Hux, bare, contemplating some unknowable complication in a situation that seems to Hux quite straightforward. Perhaps it is merely that Ren has only planned this far in advance and no farther. Hux isn’t bothered by frank scrutiny. He hasn’t got much left to hide, and not from Ren. But gods, Ren looks so tired that Hux remembers he is _exhausted_.

“And?” he prompts, gently. Stretches to prod his bare toes against Ren’s thigh.

Ren climbs all elbows and knees and _acres_ of skin straight into Hux’s lap then, some great ungainly beast come home for dinner. Hux thinks he might actually expect to be supported there, might have it in his stupid head again to neck for a while more before bed, so he topples instantly backwards onto the bunk instead. And wheezes. Ren’s huge prone weight has crushed the wind out of him—he _did_ expect Hux to hold him up, the idiot.

Ren makes a disgruntled noise—no concern for Hux’s crushed rib cage, which is frankly typical—but rearranges with no more fuss than that to lie draped leg and arm over Hux. The alternative would have been to actually smother Hux to death by remaining with his full weight on Hux’s solar plexus, so he appreciates Ren’s consideration in this at least. He pets at him a little, a small reward, and Ren shifts into him more easily, fits his thigh between Hux’s, heavy but apparently content.

“You’ll stay, then?” Ren asks, hopingly. As if Hux hasn’t just declined his sexual favours. Or: as if he hasn’t got Hux pinned, and in Hux’s own bed.

“If we’re sleeping. I’m due on the bridge at 0800.”

“Mm. Not so early, then.” Ren nuzzles a bit. His breathing is humid and warm and not even a little unwelcome in the crook of Hux’s neck. “I could sleep,” he mumbles. He’s clearly three quarters of the way there already, all designs on Hux’s time and virtue aside.

Hux draws his free arm up to spread his fingertips out over the small of Ren’s back and the slow rise and fall of his breath. He closes his eyes and lets Ren’s familiar rhythms tick him down steadily towards quiet.


End file.
